


Superglued Human of Proof

by huntformagic



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Actions having Unintended Consequences, Angst, M/M, Metastability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 14:25:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9076408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huntformagic/pseuds/huntformagic
Summary: Epsilon’s plan had not gone accordingly. One of his friends is forced to pay the price for his miscalculation.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My gift to kyuunonana on Tumblr for the RvB Secret Santa. A lot of angst with a small side of Tuckington. Entirely from Church's POV.

The mission had not gone as Epsilon had intended. The split, the deconstruction, was supposed to only affect himself. No one was to know going into the final fight because he knew they would try and him out of it. Epsilon didn’t want that. Even if when it was finished even he wouldn’t really be around any longer to remember it. The only issue was, well. He wasn’t the only one damaged by the deconstruction.

He had made the choice as soon as he saw the suit and realized what would happen. He wouldn’t be able to run it in his current form. Delta, however, had another solution. But shattering himself into fragments, like the original Alpha had? That stood a chance of actually working. It would enable him to run the suit and would save everyone. It was a great Delta solution, logical and self-sacrificing. Not to mention it was the only solution that was really plausible. Epsilon could see that clearly and he had accepted his fate. Just like his namesake, he knew his time had come. With his mind made up, he didn’t think to focus on the calculations anymore. He knew where he wanted to direct his last thoughts. His last calculations would be dedicated to ensuring the future of his friends. He wouldn’t think about himself, the pain that it would bring him. How, by doing this, he would destroy everything about himself, just to save them. He remembered enough from the Alpha to know that he would feel excruciating pain. No calculations, no data would stop that. So, he had figured it was best to ignore that effect. He should’ve done the calculations. They would’ve pointed out what would happen but… he had halted his programming before it could warn him. Asked Delta not to venture in that direction, leave one last unknown just that.

Instead, he had helped Tucker put on Maine’s old suit. Had briefly checked for any obvious flaws in the armor. Scanned to reassure himself that the enhancements that Tucker would need were there. He put up shields to protect Tucker’s mind from the pain that Epsilon would inflict on himself. He’d come into this world with one of his first acts was hurting someone, Wash. He didn’t want to leave the world doing that to someone else. Finally, when the moment came, he prepared his final message to his friends. One for each of them, mostly the same but with little differences. To Carolina, his closest friend, his partner, he prepared one final message completely different. If anyone deserved one final goodbye, it was her. It mostly consisted of apologies for leaving her like everyone else and acknowledgment that if anyone of their friends would understand it would be her.

“I’m sorry C but I can’t let these guys die. That’s what would happen if I let this continue as I am. I know it would. You’ve lost so many people already and I know you’ll hate losing me but them, you won’t lose them. These guys seem to have a miraculous way of surviving shit.” He chuckled, “I guess the universe must like them. Before I go C, one final request, take care of Caboose. That idiot’ll be hit the hardest by this and he’ll need someone to be there for him. Thanks C, Bye.” He made sure to add the goodbye, to give her the finality that she’d never gotten before when she lost someone. Then, as he finished his last words to his friends and heard the door behind him finish being broken through, he deconstructed.

            When Epsilon had shattered, it had hurt, just as expected. But it wasn’t the excruciating pain that the Alpha had felt decades before. The pieces of himself had already been so worn away, so degraded, they didn’t seem to have the energy to really hurt him anymore. The little fragments of himself that he had been trying to force to remain attached didn’t spread out to each of the reds and blues like they had wanted.  They changed. They shifted and jostled for attention and reformed. They didn’t separate to do their jobs, to assist each red and blue that Epsilon had planned them to. Instead, they unified. The pieces that Epsilon had named, the emotions that he had organized into boxes and former personalities, they became one whole being. He wasn’t just Epsilon after the deconstruction. He was all of them; Delta, Theta, Iota and Eta, even Gamma and Omega. All the of the fragments that he had named and cared about, at once. Church, more whole that he could really ever remember being.  He had… he had somehow become whole, transitioned away from just a fragment. Was this what metastability felt like?

            Church didn’t have time to consider the answer. He felt slower now, and had to focus on the task ahead of him. The door was being breached and the suit, and its many armor enhancements, were powering up. When the remnants of the door finally fell to the ground, Church didn’t spare a moment to calculate what might have just happened. He acted. Controlling the suit, using the active camouflage to prevent bullets from hitting it. Using the time distortion to ensure that his other allies were pushed out of bullet paths if possible. Throwing up an energy shield when it wasn’t. Then, as soon as the shots had started, they stopped. Hargrove’s men were on the floor and all that remained were the sim soldiers that everyone underestimated. Practically unharmed, no bullets having been able to damage them.

            “Was that it?” Grif voiced the question on everyone’s mind as the bullets stopped. Bodies in suits of black armor littered the hall and doorway.

            “I-I think so, for now at least.” Church responded. Funnily enough, he didn’t project himself. He didn’t feel the need to. As he was now, he felt… complete. Whole in a way he had never felt before. Comfortable in how he presented himself. “More reinforcements are probably on the way though. Ready for another round guys?”

            To is right, Church registered the sound of a shotgun being cocked. “Ready as always, son.” Nods from the rest of the soldiers showed their agreement with Sarge’s statement.

            “Ready to use a few more enhancements this time Tucker?” No response. Church waited a moment. Still nothing. “Tucker?” Still no response.

            Then Church understood what he was feeling. This wholeness, this belonging, this- this _warmth_. That he had never felt before. Only the briefest of memories from the person he was based upon gave him even an illusion of what he was feeling now. Church could feel himself taking each breath. Could feel his heart pumping faster. He could feel a- _his_ body, something he had never really felt before.

But- it wasn’t his body, this was Tucker’s. Tucker belonged here, not Church. Tucker with his horrible one liners, and occasional mentions of fatherhood. And he- he was gone. He wasn’t in control of that body anymore. And if Church tried to search for him, for his memories, his thoughts, his personality, he found nothing in response. Tucker, he was gone. Memories erased when Epsilon’s walls had been broken as he shattered and expanded. Information that Epsilon had intended to be spread into the other suit, into their armors, had been confined. Instead of distributing themselves the fragments had remained together. They had reformed into a whole AI somehow. When that AI had reformed, it must have deleted the data on the only place it could survive, Tucker’s mind. Severed the neuron connections that had been there but had been essential. Church had accidentally managed to do what it took Freelancer years to accomplish. Just like Florida before him, he had managed to overwrite a human personality and replace it with an AI’s. But instead of innocent, clueless Jimmy who was willing to die for a war he believed in, it was a friend. Thus, Tucker was gone and Church- Church was the last one standing. His friend, a father to Junior, an alien who would never see his father again. He… H had erased that completely.

            Church didn’t take long to continue thinking about it though. He knew a second wave was coming. Could hear the boots stomping down the hall. So he pushed Tucker into the back of his mind. Then more of Hargrove’s soldiers began bearing down upon them. Since there was none of the protection the door had previously provided, Church spent the next several minutes defending the Reds and Blues and keeping them from dying. Now that he had realized what had happened, it was more obvious that he was slower. There wasn’t _time_ now. His mind was slower; he couldn’t run instant calculations. He thoughts still moved quickly of course but now they were limited. Neurological systems, unlike computer systems and calculations, moved much slower. Church found himself almost struggling to keep up with the suit that could now move so much faster than his mind. Controlling the enhancements was difficult with no AI smoothing out every issue for him. Just as he started to feel like he was losing the battle of being able to keep up with all of the steps he needed to take, he heard hope. Shots were being fired from behind Hargrove’s forces now. Alien tech shooting lasers from the back, enclosing the enemy soldiers and preventing their possible route for retreat.

           The forces were decimated pretty easily after that. When the last mercenary fell, Church was confronted with the sight of Wash and Carolina with all of the lieutenants standing in the hallway before them. Church nodded in their direction.

“Thanks for the help, things were getting a bit out of hand there.”

Wash and Carolina stood rigid, unaccepting the sight that stood before them. In his effort to keep the rest of the enhancements running smoothly, Church had accidentally dropped the active camouflage that had given the suit its Tucker-shade of aqua color before the fight had started. Now, the suit that stood before the two freelancers looked nothing like what should belong to one of their allies. Instead it was just a painful memory of a friend. For Wash, it wasn’t even that, instead clearer remembrance of the enemy he had become showed through.   
           “DON’T SHOOT ME!” Church barely had a second to get the words out of Tucker’s lips and activate the voice modulator as his allies raised their weapons at him.

           The Freelancers both paused, but kept their raised weapons pointed at the suit of their enemy.

           “Epsilon, what. The fuck. Is this?” Church could practically hear Carolina’s teeth grinding behind her helmet. Her muscles tensed, ready for a fight.

           “We needed an edge, C. And this was the only one that we found that could work.”

            Wash spoke up then. “That bastard Hargrove… he kept the Meta’s suit.”

           As Church nodded, he could hear Grif speak up behind him. “Actually he seems to have some kind of creepy museum of our past struggles here. He even had my Grifshot!” Church turned his head to the side to see Grif lift said grenade launcher in triumph. As he turned back, the former AI saw Carolina and Wash slowly lower their guns. Then Wash stepped forward.

           “So, Tucker… you agreed to put this on? I mean, don’t get me wrong if anyone on this team could handle the suit, it would probably be you. But, you’re alright with this then? The Meta tried to kill you too.”

           Church went stiff with the question directed to his body’s former owner. He didn’t know how to respond. He knew there was likely no way to solve this.  A brain wasn’t like a computer, there was no undo button to correct destroying brain cells. Tucker was gone. And Church, he had killed him. He dropped the voice modulator, allowing his friend’s voice to come out clearly.

           “There… there was some complications Washington.”

           “Tu-,” Wash paused, and Church watched his helmet tilt, “Tucker?”

           “Yeah, Tucker was the complication that I hadn’t planned for.” Both Freelancers remained completely still. Church continued, “In order to run the suit- Well a single failing AI fragment couldn’t manage it. There’s too many enhancements, too many calculations for a single, degraded program to run.”

           Wash took a step forward, raising his hand to stop Church. “But, obviously you did. Everyone’s standing here because of you.”

           “Not everyone,” Church responded. Wash lowered his hand as Church pressed forward into the sorrow that he had been pushing away. “In order to run the suit, to save everyone here, I calculated that I would need something more. So I made plans to delete my memories, my entire _self_. Repeat what the Alpha had done and separate the remains of my programming into even smaller fragments. It- it didn’t work out that way. That had been the plan! Check your HUD if you don’t believe me, there should be a message from me.”

           Wash’s shoulders seemed to have invisible weight added to them as Church continued. “Instead of separating, my fragments did what the original fragments never did, they reformed. They combined back together and filled in holes, they _fixed_ the deterioration that had been happening over the course of years. And the program that was supposed to delete my memories went wrong. Instead of deleting what made me, well me… it deleted Tucker’s. He- his cells, the connections in his brain that he had formed were overwritten with my memories as they were destroyed. Tucker’s gone Wash.”

           Church doubted that even his processing speed from when he was an AI would’ve been fast enough to register the punch to his face. He was, however, able to register Wash stepping over him, following up the initial punch with several more. Church didn’t even try to stop him. He deserved this, he knew that. His guilt was eating away at him. He had killed his friend. Now, he had someone that was making him suffer for it. He registered the glass of the helmet cracking just as the punches stopped. Wash had apparently been pulled off of him and was being held back by Carolina and Sarge.

           “You bastard! You emotionless piece of electronic shit!” Wash kept struggling though there was no way he would’ve been able to escape let alone Carolina’s grapple, not even including Sarge added on top. Church just hung his head, letting the curses and anger wash over him. In what could’ve been minutes or hours, Church couldn’t tell, Wash’s struggling eventually slowed. His body slumped down, now only being supported by his two friends. Sobs wracking his entire being. The angry shouting had morphed into loud mourning. “Why?! Why?! Do you always take everything from me! Were these memories of Alison not enough? A love that I never even had gone. And now this?” His voice cracking, he continued, “Now a love that had hardly begun, gone!”

           Church didn’t respond. He slowly stood, ignoring Wash’s cries. There was still enemies to deal with. Without Hargrove’s sick need for vengeance, there would’ve never been a need for Epsilon to break himself up like this. Without Hargrove’s actions, Tucker would still be here. And Church would be damned if Hargrove just got sent to jail for his actions. Church slowly raised his friend’s gun. Nodding to Carolina as he made his way out of the door. Hargrove was going to suffer for what he had caused.


End file.
